


Hold my hand

by MaddieWrites



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Curses, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nico gets cursed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 17:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18945598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieWrites/pseuds/MaddieWrites
Summary: "So you're cursed now?" Percy asked. He nodded."So what's the curse?""I can't breathe if I'm not touching you.""What?“





	Hold my hand

**Author's Note:**

> No joke, this has been a work in progress for two years. I’ve had countless people read this and enjoy it, but there’s still a huge part of me that thinks it’s really dumb. I decided to stop criticizing myself and just upload it. I hope you enjoy!

Percy heard someone shout his name and turned to see Nico sprinting at him. He waited for the son of Hades to slow, stop, and then explain what was going on, but he just kept running, tackling Percy to the ground and gasping for breath. He made some motions that seemed to indicate he'd explain in a moment, once he caught his breath.  
"I was-. A-At border patrol and-. Cursed I guess-. Can't breathe-. Touching-." Nico started coughing.  
"Catch your breath, then explain. It's okay." Percy didn't try to get up or shove Nico off. The son of Hades could get up when he was ready. His chest was still heaving, and he looked like he'd had quite the scare. That's ok. Percy could wait.  
"I was at the border to camp, someone-."  
"Seriously, no rush man. Wait until you're not gasping."  
He nodded, clearing his throat and trying again. Like Percy, he seemed to be in no hurry to get up.  
"Someone said they'd seen something weird and shimmery. It was a new camper and they asked me to check it out. They seemed pretty scared, so I went down and took a look around. There was this shimmery light, like it was shining through water or something, and then-." Nico started coughing again.  
"Take your time. You said something about a curse?"  
"I heard this voice in my head, and it basically told me, in weird rhymes and stuff, that it was cursing me."  
"So you're cursed now?" Percy asked. He nodded.  
"So what's the curse?"  
"I can't breathe if I'm not touching you."  
"What? That's an oddly specific curse."  
"Oddly specific but it means neither of us can fight. That takes out two of the top sword fighters, and means we're out when it comes to quests."  
"Oddly well thought-out... So, who cursed you?"  
"I don't know. But it holds up, the voice told me to take a deep breath and then... It was like there was sand in my throat. It told me I'd better get going if I wanted to live, so I ran."  
"You ran all the way here from the border? Which border?"  
"By the strawberry fields."  
"From the strawberry fields to here in one breath? Wow. Okay, so do we want to test this, just for my benefit? Not that I don't believe you, I just-."  
"Yeah, I understand." Nico got up, keeping a hand on Percy's wrist as he stood.  
"Okay. So you let go when you're ready, and if you can't breathe, just grab me again."  
The son of Hades nodded, but there was real fear in his eyes.  
"It's okay. I just want to see if the curse is still in affect or if touching me fixed it. You don't have to if you don't want to."  
"No, it's okay. Just give me a second."  
"On three? One, two, three."  
Nico took a deep breath on two and let go on three. It immediately became clear that he was choking, and Percy grabbed his shoulder. The second he did, Nico could breathe again.  
"Weird curse, but a very real one," he noted.  
"So what do I do?"  
"We'll just..." Percy let go of his shoulder and took his hand. "There. I guess we'll be spending a lot of time together, huh?"  
Nico forced a smile.  
"We'll find a way to break it, don't worry. And until then, I'm not going anywhere without you. You won't have any trouble breathing, I promise."

 

The first problem with that was going to the bathroom. They eventually agreed that Nico would be able to hold his breath long enough to wait outside the door, or long enough for Percy to wait outside the door. As long as the person using the bathroom was really fast, they could separate for that.  
Meals were alright, they just had to eat with one hand, or sit close enough for their legs to touch. By now, the whole camp knew about the curse anyway. A few of Percy's friends had come to ask if it was true, but most knew it was when they saw the two holding hands.   
Then it came time to go to bed, which was tricky. What if they moved apart in their sleep and Nico suffocated? So, with some help from Frank, they tied their wrists together loosely with twine. Problem solved. Percy and Nico both liked to sleep on their side, facing outward so it worked out nicely. Although Percy did end up pressed against Nico's back due to the position. The son of Hades didn't complain about it though, so Percy didn't try to move farther away.   
Then it was time to shower. It became very clear that although Percy was fine showering naked with another dude, Nico was not. They agreed to keep their underwear on while they showered, for Nico's sake.   
The son of Hades took a deep breath and they undressed quickly. Then Percy took his hand again and turned on the water, noting that Nico was keeping the arm Percy had a hold of pressed tightly to his side, and the other was wrapped across his stomach self-consciously.   
"I know it's a little awkward, and admittedly not an ideal situation, but it's really okay. I'm not gonna judge you or anything like that, alright? You've got nothing to worry about."  
"It's just... I..." Nico sighed, breaking eye contact and looking down at the floor instead.   
"Hey, are you okay?"  
"I just haven't told anyone yet," Nico admitted. "And I only stopped like two months ago, and I didn't wanna tell anyone if I was just going to start doing it again."  
"Doing what again? Hey, you can trust me."  
Nico sighed and showed Percy his wrists.   
"Oh."   
Self harm scars. Of course, that's what he meant. He hadn't cut himself in two months, but still had urges and wasn't sure if he'd relapse.  
"That's nothing to be ashamed of, Nico." Percy looked back up and realized he was crying. "Really, it's not. It's amazing you made it two months without relapsing. I know that can't be easy, and I'm really proud of you for fighting so hard. You're officially the strongest warrior I know. Sometimes the hardest monsters to beat are the ones that live inside us, but it looks like you're handling yours just fine."  
The son of Hades nodded, fighting back tears.  
"And if you ever need any help fighting that monster, let me know. I've got your back." Percy pulled Nico into a hug, holding him close.   
"Now, are you ready for the hardest shower ever?" The son of Poseidon asked. 

 

It wasn't as hard as they'd thought, and it helped that Percy could control water. In the end, it wasn't so bad. He could do this for a few days while they figured out how to break the curse.  
Except no one had any idea how to break the curse. They didn't even know who'd cursed Nico in the first place, or why they'd done it. No culprit and no motive meant no clue how to fix it.   
"Why don't you kiss to break it?" Jason suggested.  
"Why would that break it?" Percy asked.  
"Works in the movies, and I don't think I've heard a better idea yet."  
"Kissing won't break the curse, that's too cliché. Maybe if Aphrodite had cursed him..."  
"You don't know it /wasn't/ her."  
"If it was Aphrodite, he'd be making out with a tree, not holding my hand." Percy sighed. "Why would Aphrodite curse him?"  
"Well it's not exactly a secret that she hates me." Nico shrugged. "Could've been her."  
"So you /want/ to kiss me?"  
"N-No! I'm just saying we shouldn't rule out Aphrodite."  
"Wait, why does she hate you?"  
"I don't know, she just does. It's not important. Just... We need to find out how to break the curse."  
"Agreed. So if kissing won't work-."  
"No one said it wouldn't," Jason interrupted.  
"/Assuming/ kissing won't work, what can we try?"  
"You can heal people with water, right? Maybe that will work?" Jason offered.  
"Ok, worth a shot. To the lake!" He dragged Nico along a bit faster than he could walk, but this talk of kissing had sort of unsettled him. He wanted to try this as soon as they could.   
"Okay, so I'm just gonna do this then... " Percy knelt next to the water, dragging Nico down with him.   
"W-Will it hurt?"  
Percy looked up, and Nico looked terrified.  
"No, of course not. If anything, it just feels cold, a little tickly maybe. It won't hurt, I would never hurt you."  
"Do I have to do anything?"  
"No, just relax. Ready?"  
"I think so."  
Percy closed his eyes and felt the water creep up his arm and make it's way over to Nico. The son of Hades gasped when it touched him, startled, but then relaxed. Percy opened his eyes to see if anything was happening and realised they were both glowing a sea green color. That didn't usually happen, but he didn't want to scare Nico, so he kept quiet and watched. It seemed to be doing /something/, but then a bright light threw the water off Nico, ending the blue glow and drenching Percy.   
"Well... Um. Let's see if it worked I guess." Percy stood, helping Nico to his feet. The son of Hades let go of Percy. For a moment, it seemed to have worked, but then he made a choking sound and grabbed Percy's arm.   
"You okay?"   
He nodded. "It worked a little."  
"Yeah, we've got, what? Five seconds now? Maybe six? That's a lot better than nothing."  
"Yeah." Nico grinned. "So we did something right, we did something we were supposed to do. To break the curse."  
"But what was it?"  
He shrugged, face falling.  
"I'm sure we'll figure it out. Then we can do it again and break this. Then we can fight again, and do quests."  
"Yeah. Um... I think capture the flag is next week."  
"We should probably try and practice sword fighting together, huh?"  
"Probably. To the arena?"  
"Yeah." Percy was careful not to drag him along this time.   
"So how do you want to do this? One of us has to fight with their non-dominant arm," Percy pointed out.   
"Oh, I can fight with either, so I'll just use my left." Nico drew his sword. Frank and Jason had agreed to spar with them, Nico fighting Jason and Frank fighting Percy. They'd initially planned to have Jason and Percy pair up, but Nico said he'd rather fight Jason.  
"Alright, let's do this." 

 

"Holy Hephaestus! That was amazing!"  
"Really?" Nico blushed.  
"Yeah! You took down Jason singlehandedly! Literally! You only had one hand. I could barely block with one hand!"  
"Oh. I just practice a lot."  
"It would take me months to learn to fight with one hand!"  
"Well, I have a lot of time to practice." He sighed. "I don't have much else to do."  
"What about chores? Don't you get assigned chores?"  
"Since there wasn't a Hades Cabin until I got here, they didn't put the Hades Cabin in chore rotation, and they just never did."  
"Don't you do camp games and stuff?"  
"Not really... I just-. It's hot with a jacket and it's hard for me to find a team to play on, since everyone plays with their friends. I always feel like I'm intruding on a group."  
"You don't play with Hazel?"  
"She already has a team. So I don't really participate. I spend a lot of time in the arena. I figured why not learn to fight with one hand? I mean, if you ever get hurt and can't use one of your arms, you've got to know how to use the other one."  
"That seems like it would be extremely difficult."  
"It took a lot of strength training, yeah, but I had nothing better to do."  
"You're always welcome on my team," Percy offered.  
"We hardly bat for the same team Percy. It's okay, I don't mind. I know my place."  
"Know your place? What does that mean?"  
"You'll understand when you're older," Nico teased.  
"You're younger than me."  
"I'm from the forties, don't forget. I'm older than you. I can boss you around."  
"It's not like I'd listen."  
"But I could beat you in a sword fight," Nico shot back.  
"We'll have to test that once we break this curse."  
"Challenge accepted, if you can call that a challenge."  
Percy laughed. "Say, what do you think we did right the first time?"  
"Um... Maybe it had something to do with your powers?"  
"What, so you want me to douse you and see if you can breathe?"  
"Worked the first time."  
"To the lake?"  
"To the lake."

 

"I don't think it worked," Nico decided, wringing his shirt out. "I don't think we got any more time than we already had."  
"Okay, well what now?"  
"What else can you do?"  
"I can talk to horses, and breathe under water." Percy offered.  
"Breathe under water."   
"What? Like now?"  
"Yeah. Go for it."  
They both jumped into the lake and Nico held his breath while Percy demonstrated his under-water respiration skills. Nothing happened for a moment, but then they started glowing again and surfaced. Nico grabbed a hold of Percy to get a breath but accidentally pulled them both under. He came up coughing but couldn't take in air because Percy wasn't touching him. The Son of Poseidon surfaced quickly and grabbed a hold of Nico, supporting his weight while he got the water out of his lungs and caught his breath.  
"You okay?"  
The son of Hades nodded, clinging to Percy.  
"Sorry, I didn't think that through."   
"It's okay. Neither did I."  
They were still glowing as Percy held Nico afloat.   
"I'm gonna take us to the shore, okay?" Percy used his powers to push them over to where Nico could stand. Then they climbed out of the lake together and flopped down on the shore where Percy dried them off.  
"Okay, wanna see how much time we've got now?"  
Nico shook his head, grip on Percy's arm tightening.  
"Ok, we don't have to."  
They lay there for a while, Percy figured Nico wanted to get his bearings before they moved.  
"So, do you wanna go talk to horses and try to break the curse?" He asked finally.   
"Why don't you show me /your/ powers? Raise the dead and open the earth and stuff."  
"I don't like to do that. Maybe tomorrow, when I haven't just almost drowned."  
"Okay. So wanna know how much time we got?"  
They had about eight seconds, long enough to sneeze, or maybe parry a blow without Nico choking. They ended up spending the rest of the day in Percy's cabin, trying to recite as many monsters' weaknesses as they could.

 

“Do you wanna summon skeletons today?"  
"I don't know if I have the energy," Nico admitted. "I didn't sleep very well."  
"Do you wanna go back to bed?"  
"But you have stuff to do today."  
"Nah, nothing I can't miss. Let's go get something to eat and then we can go back to bed."  
Nico followed him reluctantly to the dining hall.  
"So, what do you feel like eating?"  
"Maybe a pomegranate. I'm not really that hungry."   
"Then eat a pomegranate, whatever you feel like having. The servers seem to know what you want anyways." Percy was, of course, talking about the magical sprites who served everyone. They always had whatever you wanted to eat, even if /you/ didn't know what you wanted.   
"Looks like they've got a pomegranate for you, and a burger for me."  
Nico thanked the sprites as they handed him the fruit.  
"Why do you like those so much?"  
"I just do." He shrugged, eating a few seeds.  
"So, going back to bed after this?"  
"Yeah, I guess. Usually I have a bath and read most of the day, but..."  
"What do you mean usually?"  
"O-Oh! Nothing, just when I'm too tired to do stuff, like w-hen I shadow travel too far or something. That's all I meant." He cursed himself for being such a crummy liar, but Percy was so easy to talk to. It was hard to lie to him.  
"Okay. Well if you want to have a bath, we can do it the same way we've been showering. And you can read if you want."  
"That's okay. I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable, and I usually read out loud, so-."  
"Well I don't mind. If you want to read out loud you can. It would be nice to have someone read to me instead of me trying to read it with my dyslexia." Percy smiled. "And I'm definitely comfortable taking a bath with you."  
"Um... O-Okay."

 

"Percy, where are you taking me?" Nico had expected to return to the Poseidon Cabin to have a hot bath and then read, but they weren't going that way.  
"Well I figured you'd rather read and have a bath in the Hades Cabin. Last I checked, you didn't bring any books to Poseidon. Besides, I want it to be as 'usual' as possible. Just do your thing and forget I'm here." Percy smiled.  
"O-Okay."  
Percy hoped he wasn't weirding Nico out. They'd made so much progress over the last three days, he didn't want to undo anything.  
Nico insisted he'd be okay to start the bath without Percy, so the son of Poseidon waited outside while he got it going. Percy couldn't help but wonder what he'd meant by 'usually'.   
Nico grabbed his arm.   
"Ready?"  
"Yeah." Percy forced a smile and led Nico to the bathroom. They undressed and climbed into the tub. This was actually really nice. The water was warm and full of lavender scented bubbles.   
"This is really nice."  
"Yeah, Hazel gave me some bubbles and stuff last year for my birthday."  
"When's your birthday?"  
"January 28th. When's yours?"  
"August 18th. So, when do you usually take a bath and read?"  
"When I... When I feel numb. Emotionally." He admitted.   
"Numb?"  
"I just get kind of depressed all alone in this cabin." Nico sighed.   
"Oh, so this is sort of to cheer you up?"  
"Yeah."   
"That's cool. Maybe, when this curse is broken, you'll have to move into Poseidon Cabin with me so you aren't alone anymore. Or I could move in here."  
"Really?"  
"Really really. I mean, why not?"  
"You know, I think I'm feeling up to raising the dead today," Nico decided.   
"Yeah? This curse is toast." Percy grinned. 

Percy led Nico to the middle of an open field, where no one would be around. He thought the son of Hades would be more comfortable raising the dead in a place where no one else would see.  
“Alright, you ready?” Percy asked. He glanced over at Nico, who did not look very ready. “Hey, what’s wrong?”  
“I just don’t want to scare you. M-Maybe we should start with basic shadow travel,” Nico stammered.  
“You won’t scare me, I promise. Just raise like, one or two dead. It doesn’t have to be a lot.”  
“I don’t know...”  
“It’s fine, it’ll be okay. Relax, and summon a couple skeletons.” Percy smiled. Nico smiled back; Percy’s smile was contagious.  
“Good?”  
“Good,” Nico confirmed. He clutched Percy’s hand a little tighter. Anything felt possible when he was holding Percy’s hand, so he relaxed, concentrated, and raised the dead. It was only one skeleton, crawling its way to the surface, ready to destroy. Nico held it back, so focused on keeping it away from Percy that he didn’t notice the blue-green glow surrounding them. He held it there for a moment before opening the earth to swallow it up. The son of Hades turned shyly back to Percy, afraid of what he might think.  
“No matter how many times I see that, it’ll still be just as amazing.” Percy laughed.  
“Really?”  
“Yeah! Your powers are so cool.”  
“Well you can breathe under water! How cool is that?” Nico laughed. “Besides, no one’s scared of you for breathing under water.”  
“Well no one’s scared of you either.” Percy laugh died in his throat.  
“They are.” Nick sighed.  
“They don’t have to be.”  
The younger demigod tore his gaze away. “Tell that to them.”  
“Only if you do too. You need to show them that they don’t have to be afraid.” Percy gave his hand a little squeeze, and Nico wouldn’t have given anything in the world to have missed this moment.  
“I-I don’t know how.”  
“Sure you do. You did it with me.”  
Nico looked up and met his gaze, and for once, he didn’t see fear. He saw a friend, someone who cared, and he knew he had something good, something real. Nico had never had anything like this before, so naturally the first thing he did was ruin it.  
Nico surged forward and kissed Percy, letting go of his hand to grip his shoulder. The son of Poseidon didn’t react at first, then Nico felt his hand come up to cup his jaw, the other resting on his lower back. The son of Hades kissed with renewed vigor, kissing Percy like it was the last thing he’d ever do. His hands found their way into Percy’s hair, and he never wanted this to stop. Percy pulled away and they were standing there, staring at each other for a moment, surrounded in a pink glow. Then Nico ran. He ran as fast as he could. He could hear Percy shout his name, but he didn’t look back. He couldn’t look back, back at the shattered remains of his first real friend, at how he just outed himself, at how he couldn’t ever come back to camp now. Nico ran for the trees, for the shadows, for what he knew. And Percy grabbed his hand, spun him around, and kissed him. There was way more to it this time, tongue and heat and grabbing at each other. There was love, and nothing else. Plain and simple, Percy loved him. Nico was crying, and he didn’t care, because they broke the curse, and now he had love, and they broke apart, gasping for air. With a small smile and hope in his heart, Nico locked eyes with Percy again.  
“Well, I guess Jason was right.” Percy laughed. “A kiss to break the spell.”  
“I guess so.” Nick beamed. “So now what?”  
“Now, I guess we go back to camp.” Percy decided. “We broke the curse.”  
“So, did you really mean what you said? About us living together?” Nico blushed.  
“Of course. We’ll get on that as soon as we get back.”  
“And until then?” Nico asked.  
“Until then," Percy said, "we can hold hands.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!!  
> Find me on Tumblr! https://depressed-but-doing-my-best.tumblr.com/


End file.
